The Amp Hour and Embedded join up to send a holiday letter to listeners.

Chris G is ever improving Contextual Electronics. Chris W has a new band: 12ax7. Elecia still has a book: Making Embedded Systems.

Amp Hour episodes mentioned in this one:

• 372: Where Chris and Dave talk about 2017
• 304: Alexa jokes
• 281: The first Amp Hour / Embedded show, with call ins
• 256: The first time Chris W was on the Amp Hour
• 187: Elecia joined the Amp Hour for the first time

Embedded episodes mentioned:

• 223: Where Chris talks about his new synth habit
• 227: Talking about Udacity and learning
• 203: EE Charlie talks about good design

We talked about teaching which led to:

• Short mention of Dreyfus model of skill acquisition of which Chris G’s friend Mel did a great explanatory comic
• Daniel Spalding’s How to Teach Adults (pdf)
• Dan Luu’s Learning To Program post
• Udacity’s Self Driving Car courses
• Computer vision with Python OpenCV
• Article on how the difficulty is the point of teaching literature
• The new art and engineering Function Podcast
• Hilarious World of Depression podcast

Books we are reading!

• Build Your Own Transistor Radio by Ron Quan
• The Hobbyist’s Guide to RTL-SDR by Carl Laufer
• Spineless by Juli Berwald about Jellyfish
• Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs by Tristan Gooley
• Into the Drowning Deep by Mira Grant (terrifying mermaids)
• Catseye by Andre Norton
• Teach Beyond Your Reach by Robin Neidorf
• Mastery by George Leonard
• Understanding By Design by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe
• Making Learning Whole by David Perkins
• How to Be Miserable: 40 Strategies You Already Use by Randy Paterson

Elecia got a JTrace Pro Cortex-M for herself for Christmas. Chris W got a Moog Werkstatt and an assortment of Teenage Engineering small synths. Chris G mostly got sweaters because Chicago is very cold.